Developer, retailer put brakes on Nashville projects

12/12/2008

By Candy McCampbell

A downtown hotel/condo tower and a suburban department store planned in Nashville have been delayed by the economic recession.

Nordstrom Inc., the Seattle-based retailer, says it will postpone its 149,000-sq-ft store at the Mall at Green Hills for one year, now scheduling the opening for the three-level store for October 2011.

That will delay a planned 460-space expansion of the parking garage at the mall, which is owned by Davis Street Land Co. of Evanston, Ill., by one year.

Work was to have started next month on the two-level addition on top of the present parking garage. It was needed because the Nordstrom store will cover a parking lot on the mall’s south side.

The other delay is the 1,057-ft Signature Tower, touted by developer Tony Giarratana as the tallest building in the Southeast. It was to have 70 stories with up to 600 condo units and a 10-story Kimpton Hotel.

Giarratana says the credit crunch also crunched the building and he will downsize it, now to only 90-100 condos, but they would be about three times the size of earlier plans.

He has no new timetable.

Turner Construction of New York had the $275 million contract for the skyscraper, which also ran afoul with the Federal Aviation Administration, which cited interference with flight paths to Nashville International Airport.

More News>>